In the book of Acts, the encounter between Paul and the disciples of John the Baptist provides a pattern that illuminates the development of Christian movements throughout history. John’s disciples were sincere believers shaped by a genuine prophetic ministry. They possessed repentance, moral seriousness, devotion to Scripture, and a readiness for God’s purposes. Their experience was authentic, yet incomplete. When Paul met them, he did not dismiss their background or question their faith. Instead, he explained that John’s teaching anticipated something greater—the outpouring of the Holy Spirit through Christ. Once this fuller message was revealed, they embraced it, and the Spirit’s visible manifestations followed. Their earlier devotion was not contradicted but fulfilled.
Something similar appears in the history of Protestant spirituality. Leaders such as John and Charles Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Nelson Darby, and the architects of evangelical revival understood devotion to Scripture and to the Holy Spirit with deep seriousness. Their emphasis on repentance, assurance, holiness, illumination, and the Spirit’s inward work changed lives and reshaped Christianity across continents. They knew the Spirit as the one who convicts, renews, guides, and empowers morally and intellectually. But their theological frameworks did not lead them to expect the outward, charismatic manifestations that appear in the New Testament—tongues, prophecy, healing, and other visible signs of empowerment. Their spirituality was rich, but oriented almost entirely toward the interior life.
When Pentecostalism emerged, it offered continuity with this tradition but also expansion. It affirmed the devotion to Scripture inherited from earlier Protestantism, and it valued the inward work of the Spirit long emphasized in evangelical and holiness movements. But it also insisted that the outward manifestations of the Spirit described in Acts remained available and were intended as part of the normal Christian experience. The result was not a rejection of earlier Protestant spirituality but a sense of fulfilment, in the same way Paul fulfilled the trajectory of John’s teaching. The categories earlier leaders lacked were supplied, and expectations broadened accordingly.
This development reshapes the meaning of the older Protestant ideal of “twofold devotion” to Scripture and the Holy Spirit. In its earlier form, the ideal leaned heavily toward Scripture as the clear and objective authority and toward the Spirit as the inward, subjective source of illumination and moral transformation. Pentecostalism preserved this structure but widened the Spirit’s role to include outward, communal manifestations alongside the inward work. The result is a fuller expression of the same aspiration: Scripture remains the unchanging guide, and the Holy Spirit is recognized as active both within the heart and outwardly in the gathered community. Rather than rendering earlier movements deficient, this perspective views them as preparatory stages whose intentions come to fruition when the full range of the Spirit’s work is acknowledged.
Stephen D Green with AI wording
